The present invention relates to a transfer apparatus for transferring a load to and from a transportation device. In particular, although not exclusively, the invention relates to an apparatus for the transfer of a vehicle between a storage bay in a multilevel storage system and a transportation device, and for the transfer of a vehicle between a transportation device and a deposit or a retrieval station. The invention also relates to a multilevel storage system and a method of lifting loads.
Storage facilities comprising a plurality of storage bays, each bay for accommodating a single vehicle, and a transportation device for transporting a vehicle to a position adjacent a storage bay are well known. In British Patent No. 1,412,551, each vehicle is provided with a pallet having slots to accommodate the vehicle wheels. Thus, a number of different size pallets is required to cater for a range of wheel base sizes. Such storage systems as described above and also in Denmark Patent No. 2747081 and French Patent No. 2355143 require the use of large and bulky pallets or trolleys which create their own storage problems when not in use. A large storage space, easily accessible to the transportation device, is required to store the empty pallets, or alternatively empty pallets must be returned to the storage bay, requiring an extra set of operations to retrieve a pallet prior to the pick-up of a vehicle and to return the pallet to the storage bay following delivery of the vehicle.